Colombian Cali, the City of Sugar, Coffee and… SAMBO

This time around the Pan-American SAMBO Championship and the Pan-American SAMBO Federation Congress were held in Cali being the third largest city in Colombia. Cali was founded in 1536 by the Spanish conquistador Sebastian Belalcazar; since the beginning of the development of sugar and coffee manufacture, the city has rapidly grew out of a small miners’ settlement into a big industrial and trading center of the country.

Cali developed from the sugar and coffee center into the SAMBO center for 5 days in September 2012. Now let’s do things in their order.

Another Pan-American SAMBO Association Congress was held on 26 September, the day before the Continental SAMBO Championship. Participants included the representatives of 12 countries. The Congress heard the report of the Pan-American Association’s President Juan Pablo Melo on the work for the previous year. Now let’s pass on to the up-and-coming events: the acute issues on the development of SAMBO in the Pan-American area were brought up for discussion. The SAMBO heads discussed the schedule of sporting events of the Federation for the period of 2013-2016. The very near future events were also disputed a lot about, especially relating to the preparation of athletes and referees to the coming October and November main opening events in the official FIAS schedule – World Competition and Championship.

The long-term question as to the ways to improve the professional level of staff engaged in Pan-American SAMBO (coaches, athletes, referees) stirred up a good deal of controversy. The question turned out to be nowise rhetorical, the answer has been determined, and shortly we will see the results of a particular work that will point-wise and efficiently help make the most important component of any business – human resources – professionally stronger.

4 newly-established National SAMBO Federations – Salvador, Honduras, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago – also became the members of the Pan-American SAMBO Federation at the Congress.

Delegates admitted that the Pan-American SAMBO currently finds itself on the upswing, and there is important teamwork to be done, which is very necessary for the future achievements.

Now let’s move from official events to the sporting ones, after all, every single matter discussed at the Congress is primarily done for the main people in SAMBO - athletes. Furthermore, they made our day at the Pan-American SAMBO Championship. Above all, the geography of member-countries was really broad, the number of athletes was also impressive – almost a hundred of sambists representing 12 countries performed in Cali.

The Organising Committee headed by the President of the Colombia SAMBO Federation Omar Lopero Tamaya made his best to hold the Championship at the high organizational level. Nobody among those present was indifferent to the amazing opening of the Championship, at which the world dance sport champions from Colombia performed. They energized all the sambists when performing those rousing Latin dances – salsa and rumba.

The Colombian National TV didn’t leave that Championship unnoticed either, and as a host broadcaster of the competitions, arranged the livestream of the Championship’s finals. In addition, TV fans were able to enjoy the SAMBO presentation and panel discussion, at which the President of the Pan-American Association Juan Pablo Melo, the President of Colombian Federation Omar Tamaya and the FIAS Development Head Andrey Moshanov spoke about SAMBO.

The Championship’s new comers – the teams from Canada and Trinidad and Tobago – performed really brilliantly. In the team total, the team of Venezuela took the lead with 14 gold medals and 3 silver ones, leaving the hosts – the team of Colombia – at the honorary second place with 4 gold and 10 silver medals.

«The sporting results show that there is a real “breakthrough” at the continent. Traditional dominating status of athletes from Venezuela and Colombia has now moved on to several new comers that proved to be not timid. For the first time in the history, two athletes from Argentina have become SAMBO championships of the Continent, thus winning two gold medals. The Uruguay team enriched their medal jar with a first gold prize. The athletes from Trinidad and Tobago won 1 gold medal, 1 silver medal and 3 bronze ones. Ecuador made their fans’ day by winning 2 silver medals and 2 bronze ones»,- Andrey Moshanov, the FIAS Development Head commented on the Championship, held in Cali.

Exciting tour of Cali arranged for all the Championship’s participants by the Tournament’s Organising Committee, became a fabulous closing of the Championship. The buses arranged like a mobile disco were moving around the city for several hours, thus eliciting smiles and props of the people passing by.

For athletes, that tour became a unique opportunity to make new friends, to communicate and to realise that SAMBO is not just a medal ring, but something more – human relationships. Human relationships, that can become more exciting, interesting and rich thanks to SAMBO.